Veteran journalist Paul Bauman, based in Sacramento, covers all levels of Northern California tennis. Contact him at norcaltennisczar@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @norcaltenczar.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Tarango to face his boss in USTA 40 Hard Court semis

Jeff Tarango might want to go easy on Peter Smith on Saturday.
After all, Smith is Tarango's boss.
The top-seeded Tarango, an assistant coach for the USC men, will meet the fourth-seeded Smith, the Trojans' head coach, in the semifinals of the USTA National Men's and Women's Hard Court Championships in La Jolla. USC has won the last three NCAA team titles.
Tarango, a former Stanford All-American from Manhattan Beach who reached the top 50 in the world in singles, eliminated unseeded John Saviano of Los Altos Hills 6-4, 6-1 Thursday. Smith, from Los Alamitos, defeated ninth-seeded Andy Stewart of Huntington Beach 6-3, 6-3.
Saturday's other semifinal features two players from the San Francisco Bay Area. Second-seeded Owen Motevassel of Sunnyvale will take on third-seeded Jeff Greenwald of Corte Madera.
In the women's singles semifinals, unseeded Dina McBride of Woodland Hills stunned No. 1 seed Gretchen Magers of San Diego 6-4, 6-1, and second-seeded Jennifer Dawson of Carlsbad blitzed fourth-seeded Kim-Trang Nguyen of Santa Ana 6-0, 6-0. Magers, a five-time titlist and the defending champion, reached No. 13 in the world in the 1980s.
Top-seeded Magers and Ros Nideffer of Poway, meanwhile, will face second-seeded Alissa Finerman of Santa Monica and Erika Smith of Oakland in the women's doubles final Saturday.
Third-seeded Brian Cory of Salinas and Rick Kepler of Aptos advanced to the men's doubles semifinals, and second-seeded Kepler and Smith moved into the mixed doubles semis.

About Me

Paul Bauman has 36 years of professional newspaper experience, including the past 15 at his hometown Sacramento Bee. He has covered hundreds of pro tennis tournaments, including Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, the Australian Open, the Davis Cup, the Fed Cup and the Japan Open. Bauman has earned numerous awards and was nominated for the inaugural class of the Sacramento Tennis Hall of Fame in 2009. He wrote “Agassi & Ecstasy,” a biography of Andre Agassi published in 1997, while working at the Las Vegas Review-Journal in Agassi's hometown and was named the 1986 Nevada Sportswriter of the Year during a stint at the Reno Gazette-Journal. Bauman served as the editor of the ATP newspaper in the Dallas area in 1982-83 and graduated from Stanford University in 1977.